Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 534 | Et Tu, Salvation Army? | Guest: Owen Strachan

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

Today we're talking to Owen Strachan, a professor of theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary, about critical race theory and its complete incompatibility with Christianity. Recently, the Salvation Army launched its "Let's Talk About Racism" initiative, but the material in the program comes from the neo-Marxist view of CRT. Professor Strachan explains what the Salvation Army gets wrong and why the core tenets of critical race theory, which makes broad claims about oppression and racism, are totally different from the biblical definition of oppression and God's call to impartiality. We also discuss the relationship between Marxism and CRT and how this ideology pops up in society in often innocuous ways. --- Today's Sponsors: Annie's Kit Clubs has a new subscription: the Genius Box. Each month your curious kids will get a new box bursting with three hands-on activities to explore an exciting STEM theme. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 50% on your first box! Good Ranchers has a variety of boxes to try yourself or to gift this season. It's the gift that keeps on giving, plus it keeps local, American farms & ranches open & donates 10 meals to people who would otherwise go hungry. Go to GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE & use code 'ALLIE' at checkout to get $20 off & free express shipping on your order. Genucel from Chamonix helps get rid of bags & puffiness under your eyes just in time for this holiday season! From now until Christmas, Genucel's most popular package is 60% off at LoveGenucel.com/ALLIE, plus enter promo code 'ALLIE' at checkout for an extra special holiday present. --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys, welcome to relatable, happy Tuesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. Yesterday, yesterday I talked about Dobbs, the abortion case before the Supreme Court. So make sure you go listen to that. I pre-recorded that on Friday because yesterday I was in Nashville for a very quick trip to be on Candace Owens's show, which will be out tonight on the Daily Wire at 9 p.m. Eastern time tonight, Tuesday. So make sure that you tune in for that. We talk about all kinds of good stuff.

Today I am talking to Owen Strand. A lot of you probably follow him. He talks a lot about the dangers of wokeness of critical race theory. And today we're talking specifically about the tenets of critical race theory, which apparently are being taught and are being pushed within the Salvation Army. And so he's going to talk to us about that story. Why what they're pushing is contradictory to the Bible, how biblically we should approach real topics like racial discrimination and oppression and how we can lovingly and clearly,

truthfully, biblically do that. And he will tell us whether he thinks that we should continue to donate to the Salvation Army or not. That is the million dollar question. So without further ado, here is my friend Owen Strand. Owen, thank you so much for joining us. For those who may not know, can you tell us who you are and what you do? Yeah, my name is Owen Strand, and I'm a research professor and provost at a small seminary in Arkansas called Grace Bible Theological Seminary, and I'm a senior fellow with family research council. I'm a husband and father of three kids, and I'm a failed pickup basketball player. Oh, gotcha. That last one is most important. But we'll have to save that subject and that part of your

testimony for a different day. Because today, I want to talk to you about, I want to talk to you about your take on this story, about the Salvation Army, apparently becoming woke and taking on critical race theory, or at least some tenets of critical race theory internally. I came across an article you wrote or a conversation you had for Family Research Council where you talked about this. And per usual, there was some pushback to the things that you had to say, even from some people that maybe I would consider conservative Christians saying, oh my gosh, this is taking it too far.

You guys are blowing this out of proportion. It's not critical race theory or it's fine. Whatever. Tell us what this is. What's going on in the Salvation Army? And why is it a big deal? The Salvation Army released a document where they talked about structural racism and systemic racism in these kind of problems. And they made clear that in their view, American society, really does present these elements to its citizens. So we're all participants in this ongoing system of systemic racism. And in particular, those, of course, who are racial majorities, those would be white people, are the ones who are primarily benefiting from this rigged game. Many people pushed back against the Salvation Army. And so the Salvation Army issued a fairly

defiant statement, frankly, that retracted at least the guidebook they had released on this topic. But here's a deal, Allie. Fundamentally, in other documents, in their positional statement on racism that they did not retract and is easily findable on the web, they fundamentally articulate all these core tenets of what we would call critical race theory or more broadly, wokeness. So the Salvation Army really has embraced a woke standpoint. And many people rightly responded to that. It's a strange fundraising strategy, Allie, in a Christmas season when we typically know that the bell ringers are outside tariff. or whatever, you know, to indict people for their racism as they walk past you and you ask for their spare change. An odd strategy, that. Right. For people who might not know, although I would guess that most people who listen to this podcast do know, tell us why it's wrong. Why is it wrong to say there is structural racism, their systemic racism, white people and maybe even white evangelicalism has colluded with, you know, racism and racist in this country to perpetuate.

those discriminatory systems. Why is it bad that the Salvation Army is pushing those kinds of ideas? As Christians, we know that sin can go public. We know, per the legacy of slavery, for example, that you can have policies and laws that really are evil and wrong and really do oppress people. The Bible has numerous instances when it calls out oppression, for example. But what we need to recognize is that that is distinct from what the Salvation Army is buying into. The Salvation Army is buying into the tenets of what we would call critical race theory, particularly or wokeness more generally. And it's built off of a neo-Marxist framework where oppression doesn't occur through definite policies that are perpetrated through institutions or individuals and

leadership. Oppression instead is really invisible. It's embedded into the fabric of a society. If you are part of the majority group, the racial majority, the group that would be white people in the society, then you are an oppressor. That's according to a Marxist framing. Marx and Engels applied that framework first and foremost to economic matters. So if you're part of the wealthy group in society, you're basically an oppressor of the poor. What has happened in the last 30 to 40 years is that critical race theory has taken that Marxist framework and it's applied it to the issue of race.

And so if you are, as I say, a white person and then you are part of the majority group and you automatically fundamentally structurally oppress those who are in the minority group. You oppress, that is, people of color. And just to put a fine point on the matter, the Salvation Army included a whole glossary of terms, like systemic racism, white privilege, equity, and others that are right out of the critical race theory playbook, showing us that they really have embraced not a biblical understanding of oppression, which is real. They have embraced instead a neo-Marxist understanding of. oppression, which is in many respects imaginary. It's fostered oppression made up to convince people

that they are committing sins that they really aren't committing. And tell us what the biblical perspective on oppression is. If you were giving a presentation to the Salvation Army, if they said, okay, Owen, you're right. We're going to do away with this, let's talk about racism, curriculum, or lesson that we have presented to the Salvation Army. And we're going to bring you in to talked about what oppression actually looks like and how we should approach oppression and racial discrimination as Christians. What would you say? I would say let's understand that when we're talking about oppression in biblical terms, I mean, here it is Christmas season. Merry Christmas, everybody. Think about Herod and Matthew 2. When Herod understands that this Christ child is a rival

to him in kingly terms, what does he do? He destroys boys under two because he's trying to wipe out the threat of a coming king. That is a real policy of oppression. That is a definite law or leadership decision that then causes tremendous suffering on the part of the people he is ruling. If you think about slavery, if you think about Jim Crow law, you're recognizing there that those are policies or systems that really are fomenting suffering of people. And those are evil. But that is very distinct from looking at a white person who is not trying to support any racist law or policy or any kind of broader system or framework, but is simply trying to live their life. And you going to them and saying, you, white person, you baking your pumpkin chocolate chip muffins this fall, you are actually transmitting systemic racism at every moment as a part of the racial power majority in America. And you need to repent not only of your generic whiteness, but of being a white.

supremacist more broadly. That is what wokeness claims. That is the strong end of wokeness. The Salvation Army was giving us a kind of softer form, a slightly softer form, although if you really read the documents, it's all there. And what I want to say to the army and to anybody else listening to this

conversation is this, that's bonkers. That's not true. The person who is trying to be a good citizen or in a Christian sense, trying to follow God, who is not saying racist things and an racist policies and supporting racism is not a white supremacist. They are not a racist. And this is really

an imaginary neo-Marxist framework of racism that is being used to essentially target and destroy American civilization and also to fundamentally undermine the unity of the Christian church. That's ultimately where I think this system is headed. It's trying to destroy the unity that the church has in Jesus Christ and make people who have different skin color think that they're implacably opposed to one another when in reality they are not. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political.

They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos.

If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. And I'm curious how you think this starts in organizations like the Salvation Army that has been around for over 150 years, has done a lot of good work. I don't think anyone is denying that. But I've been curious because there have been several organizations and several churches that seem to start going this direction. And it happens little by little.

But, I mean, where does this start? Does it start with someone with a good intention to talk about, you know, biblical justice? And then somehow they start taking on the vocabulary and principles of secular justice that comes from critical race theory. I mean, how does this happen in your observation? Institutions like the Salvation Army have been a soft target for a long time because the Salvation Army has been prey to the so-called social gospel for a good long while now. Different branches and elements of the Salvation Army have embraced a kind of soft pro-LGB position. So we need to recognize that the Salvation Army of today is not necessarily the Salvation Army of the 19th century.

It has numerous challenges and failings in it. There's some wonky don't. more broadly with the Salvation Army in terms of how it understand its relation to the church. But if we're getting out of that discussion and talking just about how organizations go woke, we need to recognize that, yes, this often happens through a kind of soft politics position where you're neither left nor right. In fact, Ali, I'm not saying the Army has used that slogan itself, but lots of organizations have either used that phrase, I just said, neither left nor right, or at least they've operated by it in recent years. And so what they've done is they've taken politics and they've made it essentially only a conscience issue.

So political issues aren't discipleship issues where, in other words, you need to train people to hold a certain position on a matter, being pro-life, being anti-abortion, being pro-religious liberty, being pro-free market, these kind of biblical realities. No, instead, because lots of people disagree on those matters and Christians want nothing less than disagreement and disagreement and disqualify. unity and smaller churches, then what we need to do is we need to take political issues, and we need to not make them discipleship issues. We need to make them conscience issues, jump balls, essentially. You can hold whatever you want to believe about those matters. The church is not political. It's neither left nor right. Now, you and I would say, of course, the church isn't fundamentally political. It's not about getting out the vote. That's not its primary purpose on the earth. But we are those who believe in a biblical worldview. We are those who believe Matthew 28,

that disciples are to be trained in everything and all things that Christ and his apostles have taught. And so we don't reduce Christian discipleship to its smallest possible reality. We are those who are trying to bring people into the glory and fullness of the Christian worldview. A lot of churches in the last 20 years, even reform churches, conservative evangelical churches, though, laid back and essentially stopped discipling their people on controversial matters. And that has really created a kind of hole in Helms Deep that has then blown up the wall and allowed all sorts of poisonous leftism, poisonous leftist ideas to seep into the church. And now we're left with the bitter fruits of that, with a church that has increasingly embraced the latest iteration of leftist ideology, wokeness.

What's interesting to me is that, well, one, you see evangelicals or professing evangelicals when they start to embrace secular definitions of justice and social justice, kind of what Thomas Sol calls cosmic justice. And they start putting all kinds of adjectives in front of the word justice. You typically see that they start to embrace a secular sexual ethic as well. These things go hand in hand. Obviously, we know that it's under this big umbrella of critical theory. There's queer theory. There's feminist theory. It seeks to overthrow traditional hierarchies. And it's different. Obviously, queer theory and critical race theory are not the same thing. And when I have talked about this and debated this,

people have pointed out that critical race theory and queer theory obviously aren't the same thing because racism is actually a sin. And people talking about like a queer theorist who says that saying a man is a man is a bigot would be biblically wrong. And so it's not completely fair to compare those two things, but they are essentially the same in how they see the world. and what their goals actually are, how they define things like equity, equality, and liberation and oppression, which are contradictory to how the Bible defines those things. And so we know why when people embrace kind of a secular social justice ethic, they also end up embracing the secular sexual ethic. What's interesting to me, though, is that there are, and you can probably think

of some right off the top of your head as well. There are conservative evangelicals who hold a biblical sexual ethic when it comes to sex and gender and marriage and all of that. And they're pretty forthright about that. Who also embrace tenets of critical race theory, even as they say that they don't. And they also say that they embrace biblical inerrancy and that they are just seeking biblical justice. In your analysis, how is that possible? How is it possible that there is a camp of conservative evangelicals that are right on on most issues that, you know, we would agree with? But when it comes to the issue of race, people, for whatever reason, adopts tenets of, you know, of thought groups like critical race theory. Why is that? Yeah, well, I think you've been pushed back too

hard against. That was a clumsy sentence. But fundamentally, I would say, yeah, these are just branches of the same tree. Critical theory produces critical race theory. This is all coming out of the poison stream of Marxism, if you trace it back. And so we need to recognize that this is all part and parcel of a broader framework, a broader worldview. Wokeness is not just about racism, so-called countering racism. It is about an entire paradigm. And so you recognize that an organization like Black Lives Matter, for example, had really

its strongest words in its former platform that got scrubbed because of public scrutiny a year ago against the nuclear family, so called, the traditional family. So these birds flock together in taking down the existing public order. Wokeness really seeks to take down, yes, the racial majority group, but it also seeks very much to take down the nuclear family, as it calls it. And so we are not at all wrong to see these emphases as really part of one collective push to totally destroy and remake Western civilization. That's really what we're fighting for, Ali. We're really fighting for Western civilization in our age. And there are a few, tragically, who want to defend it, including in the Christian church. Many church leaders have basically told us that we need to simply sit back and listen and have hard conversations and not really say anything declarative in this whole conversation about race. I'm talking about race here because we have a fractured past and slavery and our history and that sort of thing. And so really the game plan for the last five years on the part of the a good number of reformed and conservative evangelical leaders has been be quiet and just listen.

And if we just have enough honest conversations where really we give the mic to our friends of color, then that is going to resolve things. And this problem will basically go away. And that is not a sustainable strategy. That is not a biblical strategy. Titus 1-9 tells us that we have to, as elders and teachers of the word, men in the church have to give instruction and sound doctrine, and then they have to rebuke those who contradict it. And there seem to be very few who want to do the second part of that.

There are a good number who want to sign up to go proclaim sound doctrine. Praise God for that. But there seem to be very, very few who want to rebuke those. It's not rebuke that or rebuke what. It's rebuke people who contradicts sound doctrine. What I discovered in working on my book, Christianity and Wokeness, is this. This is not a conversation where everybody agrees. This is not a conversation where everybody just says racism is terrible as it is.

in biblical terms, and then we sit there quietly twiddling our thumbs. No, this is a conversation in which there is this imperial secularist ideology, wokeness, and it is advancing at every turn. It is funding Black Lives Matter. It is funding Antifa. It is funding the left today. And if Christians do not stand up and oppose it, we will surely lose our civilization, and we will even see the very nature of the church in our time imperiled. So you can't just sit there and have hard conversations and honest conversations. You should be quick to listen. You should be slow to speak and slow to anger. But fundamentally, you have to recognize that this is an ideology. This is a lofty opinion, 2 Corinthians 10, 3 to 6, that is being raised against the knowledge of God and that

is going to destroy the gospel and you need to destroy it. I think that two ideas or two words that I hear a lot, especially from female Christians when I talked about this, is nuance and empathy, that these are the two things that we really need to uphold really more than anything else when we're having conversations about race or even when we're having conversations about gender, that we need to be one empathetic and two, that we need to seek nuance. Obviously, my pushback to that is that empathy is not always love, especially if it is empathy minus truth, which does not equal love, but is actually a form of hate. And also, I don't think that we should be seeking nuance.

We seek the truth, which is sometimes nuanced, but sometimes it's not. What is your thought about that, especially as it pertains to female Christians who I see, at least from my vantage point, like you said about the Salvation Army, are more of soft targets for this kind of ideology because we are naturally nurturing and relational. And of course, no one wants to be seen as a big it or seen as arrogant or something like that. What's your take on that? Yeah, I'm thankful for the way you've pushed back on these matters in recent. days in particular with your focus on womanhood. I think you're dead right, Ali. I think that's where wokeness has really made its lunch. That's where it has put hay in the barn. It has played around the edges. It does a lot of its best work in soft focus. What I mean is it doesn't come out and give you

the hard edge of its ideology that ultimately, if you really follow the tenets of this godless ideology, white people are white supremacists. That's where it goes, ultimately. And to their credit, a bunch of woke voices and critical race theorists have come out and said that. They're very clear on that. They're not shy about it. But in Christian circles, and among women in particular, you're not getting like a group read of Marx, and that's how the ideology advances. You get this kind of, we should be anti-racist and we should be pro-newance and we should learn from others and we should be empathetic. That is not the right way to approach the conversation. The right way to approach the conversation is that, yes, we are always seeking to embody and live out the fruits of the spirit by the power of

God in us. So yes to that. But we are a people who have to be founded and grounded on the truth. We can only believe something. We can only back something if it is true. We cannot send vague feelings of goodness in the direction of ideologies if they are false, if they are godless, if they are anti-gospel. And ultimately, we're really going in here, anti-Christ. Instead, you stand on the truth. And in a Colossians 2.8 sense, you seek to understand what is taking the church captive, ideologically, and then to bring back in that 2 Corinthians 10 passage, when you identify that

there is a worldview that is praying on God's people, whether it is in the hard form, or whether it is, as it commonly is, in the softer form, in terms of language like equity or white privilege or tolerance or fairness or social justice, recognize that that is a worldview that is being advanced, that is not the same thing when you look at its roots, when you go to the core texts of the ones who are promoting it, and then you recognize, ah, I should be a loving Christian, of course, but I am in the territory where I need to not accommodate this ideology. I need to, 2 Corinthians 10, destroy it, which means understand it, read about it, study up on it, and then counter it with the truth of God, Ali, that is loving. That is nuanced. That is humble.

To stand on God's truth is never proud. Right. I like to say that we can't out love God. 1 John 4-8, God is love. We are not love. So if God says something is good and right and true, then the most loving thing that we can do is to agree with him. And I do see Christians stumble over themselves to try to kind of let God off the hook when it comes to difficult things, especially when it comes to these matters of identity and these matters of, you know, rightful sensitivity when you're talking about someone's so-called sexual identity or so-called gender identity that is very personal. And so people really try to soften what they say so that they can appear more loving. But as I said, if God is love and if he says something

clearly, then the most loving thing that we can do is also say something clearly. We don't need to let God off the hook for what he calls good, what he calls evil, what he calls right, what he calls wrong. All we have to do is submit to and agree with him. Go ahead. Yeah, excuse me. I love what you just said, and it relates to at least two other conversations as if we don't already have enough on the table here. It relates to transgender pronouns. That was really the test run for be loving and be empathetic. If you're loving and empathetic, right, then you'll use the preferred pronouns of a so-called transgender individual. And now the latest iteration of this argument in this conversation is do basically whatever the government says to do in terms of

COVID and vaccines and these kinds of matters. And there's a whole conversation to have about those things. I know you're having it in your own circles. But if you're loving your neighbor, basically, you just do whatever your neighbor wants you to do. Allie, all of these matters, all these conversations boil down to that core idea. It's a total hijacking of love of neighbor according to the Bible. Love of neighbor according to this soft, smushy consensus today means do what your neighbor wants. Whereas in the Bible, absolutely love your neighbor. Love your neighbor six days a week and twice on Sunday.

But love your neighbor out of the overflow of the love of God. You don't break the first commandment, love God. with your whole being in order to keep the second commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. You stand on the first commandment. You keep the first commandment. You love God according to his truth. And then out of the overflow of his truth, never believing a lie, never promoting a lie, you love your neighbor as yourself.

I think that helps to reframe things. Yep. If you love me, you will keep my commandment. So the love that we have of God is also not that mushy love that you just spoke of that some people use it as an excuse to, you know, tolerate and accept all kinds of sin. But love of God is very clear. We're told what it is. It is keeping God's commandments.

And like you said, if we're loving God keeping His commandments, then we will speak the truth in love with our neighbor. Just to circle back as we kind of close this conversation up to the Salvation Army, there was an open letter at the beginning of November that Greg Kokel wrote. You might have read it, basically saying that he is going to terminate his mother's monthly donations to the Salvation Army. And then he explained that it is, it's because of this critical race theory that he sees being employed at the Salvation Army. Do you think that Christians who donate to the Salvation Army volunteer with the Salvation Army, that they should stop doing so,

even if the Salvation Army is doing some good things? I have real concerns about the Salvation Army in this day and age. On this case, on this and also for other reasons that we've touched on briefly. So, no, I wouldn't fundamentally drive people toward the work and the outreach of the Salvation Army at this time. I don't say that with glee or with joy. I say it with sadness. Fundamentally, this isn't just somebody at the Salvation Army, an intern somewhere wrote,

yeah, less than ideal position paper on racism, and then they released it. If you go back through the documents of the Salvation Army, as I mentioned, the positional statement on racism, for example, you see that this is really embedded in their current belief system. And that shows us that wokeness really is alive and well in the Salvation Army. Wokeness, though, should not be understood in isolation. It is really the latest iteration of what we call the social gospel. The social gospel is totally distinct from the biblical gospel. It says that the gospel is not about personal salvation, trusting the blood of Jesus Christ for your cleansing and the resurrection of Jesus Christ for everlasting life. Instead, the gospel is about making society better.

It's about making people's lives more equitable and fair. And so wokeness fits hand and glove into that social gospel framework. I would not encourage people to give to an organization that is promoting such tenets. If the Salvation Army renounces these things and professes once more strong, robust faith in the biblical gospel of salvation in the name of Jesus Christ, then we have a new day before us. But today, sadly, those folks ringing the bell, may not even know of these matters, but this is an organization that is drifting. And we have to push our money, our time, our efforts to organizations that are sound and that are promoting the truth and that are representing God rightly in this fallen world.

I agree with you. Thank you so much. Owen, I really appreciate all of your thoughts. Can you tell everyone how they can follow you, where they can buy your book and all that good stuff? Sure, thank you. My book is Christianity and Wokeness. It's over, wrong shoulder. It's over that shoulder.

You can get that on Amazon. You can get it on Christian book distributors or Barnes & Noble, other outlets like that. And I'm on social media. My Twitter is probably the best place to go. It's at O-S-T-R-A-C-H-A-N. And then my Instagram is at Prof. S-T-R-A-C-H-H-H-H-E.

A.N. Nobody's going to get that last name. It's a Scottish last name with a Gaelic pronunciation. Got it. And it causes me endless headaches. But it's my name. Yes. Yes. That's what it is. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I hope everyone follows you and buys your book if they haven't already. I appreciate you talking to us today. Thank you, Allie. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself.

On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular.

This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join them.

this.